Bad Medicine
by Garrae
Summary: "If he'd gone home when he'd really started to feel awful rather than sticking it out until everyone went home, and if he'd not gone in this morning when he felt like hell but wouldn't admit it – well, maybe Beckett wouldn't have been driving him to the doctor now."
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: It'll take more than a doctor**

"For heaven's sake, Castle. It's only medicine."

Castle pouts. "Don't like it, Beckett."

"What are you, five? You need to take it. Three times a day. You haven't even taken the first dose yet, so how do you know you don't like it?" He droops pathetically at her.

"It will taste _horrible_. Worse than the coffee you used to have in the precinct. It'll make me sicker. It's like broccoli. Just looking at it you know it'll be horrible."

"Don't be such a baby."

"Where's your compassion? Your milk of human kindness? Your maternal, caring instinct?"

He stops. Beckett has disappeared. The sound of hysterical laughter has replaced her, as if she were a demented Cheshire Cat. He peers out from his cocoon of pillows and covers to find her sitting on the floor, crying with laughter.

"What's so funny? I'm ill, and you're sitting on the floor laughing."

"Maternal instinct? Milk of human kindness?" she gurgles. "Are you doped?"

Castle glares. At least, he would glare, if only his face were suited to it and he weren't suffering so badly.

"What's wrong with that idea?"

"You've been following me for nearly three years and you think I have a single, solitary maternal instinct? You are definitely sick." She struggles up from the floor, still sniggering at the thought. "Now, take your medicine."

"Won't."

That was a mistake. Beckett moves faster than a speeding bullet, pinches his nose shut, waits for his mouth to open for him to breathe and then pours the spoonful of medicine into his mouth. He has a choice between swallowing and choking. He opts to swallow. It tastes foul.

"Done," Beckett says smugly. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" She's humming. The evil, torturing witch is humming. It takes him a moment to recognise the tune.

"A Spoonful of Sugar? You didn't give me any sugar, Beckett. You haven't given me anything to take the taste away."

"You want a lollipop to lick?"

"I'd prefer to lick" –

"Shut up, Castle," Beckett grates, blushing furiously.

" – an ice-cream." He smirks. Even if he feels like a truck ran over him, getting one up on Beckett is worth it. Though her automatic assumption was entirely correct. He would certainly prefer to lick her. If he weren't sick. Right now, Beckett could strip down to her undoubtedly stunning underwear and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The thought doesn't even raise – ha! – a twitch. That's depressing.

It's all his own fault, too. If he hadn't insisted on following Beckett around in the rain when he was already feeling a bit rough, because he _knows_ there's something wrong with her but he doesn't know what it is except that she really spooked on the sniper case that they've just finished (and he didn't want to admit to any weakness) and if he'd gone home when he'd really started to feel awful rather than sticking it out until everyone went home, and if he'd not gone in this morning when he felt like hell but wouldn't admit it – well, maybe Beckett wouldn't have been driving him to the doctor because he'd started to stand up and then sat straight back down again a lot more quickly than he'd meant. He must be ill. He can't even think in sentences now.

At least it had been his own doctor. He wouldn't have put it past Beckett – who is being _entirely_ unsympathetic – to take him to the precinct doctor. Still, it hadn't been pleasant. Dr Kovach had poked and prodded him and taken his blood pressure and stabbed him with needles when all he, Castle, had wanted to do was lie down and die quietly. And then he'd been given this revolting yellow medicine and – worst of all – the nurse had told Beckett, who she'd clearly assumed was his girlfriend (but Beckett hadn't denied it, for once, though she'd given him her patent _don't get any ideas, Castle_ look too), to make sure he took it. Three times a day, for a week. First dose immediately he got home.

It was ridiculous. He didn't need medicine. He simply needed sleep. He didn't need a doctor either but Beckett wouldn't listen to his perfectly reasonable arguments and insisted he was going, backed up by the threat of her Glock. The medicine looked vile from the moment it was produced. Sulphur dissolved in urine thickened with cornflour. And it tastes worse than that. He's not ill. He can't be ill, because he's never ill. He has the constitution of an elephant and he is very proud of his good health.

He slumps into his sheets, already exhausted. "Please may I have some ice-cream, Beckett? I wanna take the taste away."

"Okay." He's too tired to be surprised by her acquiescence. He's out before she's left the room.

He'd be astonished if he could see the look on her face when she comes back in, with a small bowl of ice-cream. Chocolate, because there had been three times as much chocolate ice-cream as anything else in the freezer and it therefore seems very likely to be his favourite. Castle's asleep, and for once he looks completely vulnerable: white and ill and his big body somehow shrunken. Whatever she'd said when he was awake, she is actually more than somewhat worried about him. In three years, near enough, he's never been ill, or even a little off-colour. She's never even seen him pop an Advil, though occasionally he's self-medicated his emotions with alcohol.

And now he's out cold. Barely had the energy to put on pyjamas – didn't have the energy to flirt and ask her to help. (She wouldn't have.) Perked up for five whole minutes (she counted) while he complained about the medicine. She sighs. She knows what's going to happen here. She can't leave him. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be what partners do. She's a poor enough partner at the moment, spooking at guns and hiding the truth.

Martha's touring, God knows where in the Mid-West. Maybe Oklahoma. Maybe it was Ohio. Anyway, she's not here to look after her son. Alexis is on a school trip for a week. (Why in November? Weather's vile. Must be because it's off season and the costs are low, though she wouldn't have thought anyone worried about costs if they were at Marlowe.) And senior year is really not the time to be missing out on school because you're looking after your father, even if you are normally the grown-up in the house and you'd be happy to do it.

He can't be left alone, and the only possibility left to look after him is one Kate Beckett, currently standing in his bedroom with a bowl of chocolate ice-cream which is starting to melt, a gun and a shield. Only one thing to do, really. She sits down on a handy chair and eats the ice-cream meditatively. Captain Gates is not going to like this. Captain Gates, however, doesn't need to know. Castle doesn't need twenty-four/seven care, he just needs someone making sure he takes the medicine. Oh… and someone here with him in the evening and at night.

She casts another look at him. He looks different when he's asleep, without the exuberant personality and the myriad expressions that dance through his eyes. Of course, the pain crease that hasn't smoothed out from his forehead doesn't really help.

She shuffles the chair – thank heavens it's not an enormous armchair that would scrape the floor and make noise and waken him – to next to the bed, goes to put the ice-cream bowl in the dishwasher, looks at Castle's coffee machine and decides very rapidly that she needs sleep before tackling that monstrosity, fails to find even the poor substitute of instant coffee (even she has some instant coffee for those moments of absolute desperation and complete fumble-fingeredness, how can Castle not?), raids the bookshelves and discovers a book that even she has never read.

Who on earth is Ruth Dudley Edwards? And why does Castle have so many books by her? She makes sure she starts with the first. She _never_ reads the ending in advance, and her absolute pet hate is starting a series mid-way through. It's the same logical, orderly thinking that she applies to her job.

(Castle had once referred to it, early on, as hard-core anal retentiveness. When she'd finished with his ears, he'd promised never ever to say it again. Never, Beckett. Promise! Sadly, she can't torture him for his thoughts. But it's pretty clear that he thinks it, every so often. Hmmm. Mmmmm. Making him take his medicine will be sweet revenge – and she'll be doing it for his own good. Ah, perfect. She can torture him and feel good about it. She hums A Spoonful of Sugar again.)

She doesn't actually need to go back and sit in his bedroom with the book. She could sit in Castle's study (though it makes her just a little uncomfortable to be intruding into his sanctum. Mostly, the discomfort is because she is entirely unsure that she could resist the urge to search it and discover his secrets.) or she could sit in the family room on that sinfully comfortable couch, or she could go up to the guest room, make up the bed, borrow some essentials from Alexis or Martha (she'll skip the Olay, thanks) and read in bed. She really doesn't need to watch over him. Really.

But he's genuinely ill, and clearly belongs to that minority of men who won't admit to illness (most of them make a mild cold into swine flu), so if he gets worse he'll hide it. And that's all the justification she needs. She goes back in, seats herself in the chair to the extremely limited extent possible, and begins the book.

Half an hour later she's decided she adores the book. She's had some difficulty controlling her sniggers at the wry, sardonic humour and the characters, no doubt caricatures but oh-so-worth the exaggeration. She does not, however, adore the chair. It is not comfortable. She can't curl up. She can't tuck her feet under her, or drape her legs over the arm, or lean back. This is not a good chair for reading in. She'll need to tell Castle that. He should have a useful chair in here. If she's going to be spending time in here he should have a comfortable chair for her to sit in.

She glares at the chair, which despite being an inanimate object cringes. It makes her feel better. She leaves the book with some reluctance, and decides that she'd better prepare for bed. That's another problem. Ferrying Castle to the doctor and then home, and then having to stay, had not, surprisingly, figured on the day's to-do list. Going home to a small glass of whiskey to cure the shakes and shivers from the case had. She's done that every night this week. It helps. Not a lot, but she won't have more than one and it does help some.

She knows what would help more. Has known, ever since her last apartment blew up and she had to crash here. But they've never talked about that either. Never talked about how she'd crept down and snuggled in beside him and he'd woken to find her wrapped against him. She'd been awake, when he'd very carefully detached himself so as not to wake her. But nothing had happened, and they'd never mentioned it ever again. Bit like their only kiss, really. They've never mentioned that ever again, either. They're really good at never mentioning anything ever again.

That line of thinking is not helping her get ready for bed. First problem, she has nothing to sleep in. Okay. She's taller than Alexis, and rather differently shaped; and the thought of borrowing Alexis or Martha's nightwear is just – well, icky. Borrowing a t-shirt of Castle's, however, is not icky. Not least because she's done that before too, when she stayed here. She investigates his closet, and when that fails – she'd been sure he'd hang up his t-shirts: he's such a clothes-horse – raids his drawers until she finds them. She's very quiet about it, and he doesn't so much as turn over in his sleep.

Actually, he hasn't moved at all. That doesn't seem very good. But he is breathing – that's a good start – and when she carefully feels his forehead, although he's definitely running a temperature it's not worryingly excessive. Another thing she'd better keep an eye on. At least she's found a t-shirt, which – she buries her nose in it – smells rather deliciously of Castle. That will quite definitely do. Now all she needs is a toothbrush.

She wanders upstairs and borrows some of Alexis's cleanser and moisturiser, finds a spare toothbrush, changes in the spare room, and wanders back down. She tells herself it's to read her book. Mostly, though, it's to make sure that Castle is okay.

She glares at the chair again. It is really not comfortable. Sitting on the floor would not be comfortable, either. There is one other option…

This is a really, really bad idea. It's not _fair_ of Castle to get ill and need looked after. If life were fair then she wouldn't be looking at Castle glued firmly to one side of a truly enormous bed and thinking that the empty side looks astonishingly suitable for sitting and reading. There's a small side light, there are lots and lots of pillows to lean on and it would be nice and warm with her toes under the covers. Castle doesn't appear to be a quilt thief, she notices. No risk that she'd disturb him. And if he does need something, or seem to be getting worse, she'll be right there to deal with it.

Her decision is made for her when she shivers. It is not warm, standing around in a t-shirt in a ridiculously large apartment in November. She wriggles very carefully into the free side of the bed and manages not to get within a foot of Castle. Apart from anything else, she doesn't need broiled. Castle is giving off enough heat to roast a rhino. Could be useful in winter, that. She's often chilled.

Sorry? What? This is a one-time thing because he's ill and she is worried about him. He's her partner. She has a right to be worried. She goes back to the book. Far too late – that is a _damn_ good book – she realises that she should have been asleep two hours ago, and that she will need to get up early to get to her apartment and change clothes. If she packs a bag it'll do for the next few days if Castle isn't better tomorrow. She sets the alarm on her phone and switches the light out. The last vague flicker of consciousness says that this is a very comfortable bed, and a very comforting place to be.

She doesn't think that this is not the bed she meant to snuggle into to find sleep. She doesn't realise that she's reached across the gap to find Castle's hand. She's blissfully, contentedly asleep, in a way that she hasn't been for quite some months.

Castle wakes in the small hours of the morning, feeling atrocious. His head hurts, his joints hurt, his eyes hurt, and he is quite convinced that his eyelashes hurt too. And just to add to his woes, he is hallucinating. It's an astonishingly realistic hallucination, but it is simply that. There is no way that Beckett would have stayed the night, still less in his bedroom, still less than that in his bed. So it can't be real. He must really be ill. Or it might be the ghastly medicine.

There is one small consolation, though. If it _is_ a hallucination, then it won't object if he cuddles up to it, the way he's wanted to ever since Beckett had sneaked into his bed over a year ago – he's still not entirely sure whether it had been due to her nightmares or his – but then they'd never talked about it ever again. Since this hallucination is holding his hand, contact is clearly not a problem. Well, insofar as anything is clear through his pounding head, it's not a problem.

He heaves himself over on to his other side, where he could, if only he could keep his eyes open and his head in one piece, admire the excellent realism of the hallucination: it even has the beauty mark and Beckett's long eyelashes and satiny skin that had felt so good against his… He is definitely ill. But the hallucination will do nicely as a remedy. It's a lot better than vile yellow medicine, that's for sure.

Heaving complete (he is fuzzily sure he's actually lighter than two years ago: running round with the cops has inspired him not just to books but to a proper fitness regime, but right now he'd swear he weighs a couple of tons, one of which is possibly his head), he pulls this wonderfully solid hallucination into him, shuts his aching eyes and slithers back towards sleep.

Two hours later he wakes up again. He hurts a little less, but that might well be because he's still hallucinating. In fact, he's even further into complete insanity because this time his hallucination is talking in its imaginary sleep. Certainly proves it's not a real Beckett, that. She never talks about anything important when she's awake and he's sure she wouldn't do so in her sleep.

"Want to get better, Dr Burke."… Definitely not Beckett. She never goes to the doctor. And she isn't ill. He's ill. Beckett made him go to the doctor, which was simply not fair.

"I don't wanna talk about it. I just wanna be better."

So does he. He's never ill. It's not fair that he's ill and Beckett made him go to the doctor and made him take horrible yellow medicine that's making him hallucinate about having a Beckett in his bed who's talking. He'd pout, but it would make his head hurt even more. He'd kill for a Beckett in his bed, and he'd kill for a Beckett who might actually talk to him.

"I can't have him till I'm better."

What? This is insane. This is definitely a hallucination. He cuddles down and firmly closes his eyes.

* * *

 _From a prompt by Mobazan. "It's only medicine." Said by Beckett._

 _This is deliberately lightweight. 6 chapters of mostly fluff._

 _Thoughts are appreciated._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Get this poison out of me**

When he wakes he's alone. He doesn't feel any better at all. Well, his eyelashes don't hurt. He supposes that this is an improvement. He turns over, sulking. No-one wants to help him get better.

"Good. You're awake." Beckett? What's she doing here? Different clothes. Must have come by first thing. "Time for your medicine." No!

"No medicine."

"Yes medicine. Stop fussing. It's antibiotics and if you don't take the whole course you'll be contributing to the superbug epidemic." That's unkind. Maybe the superbugs like sulphurous urine extract. He doesn't. Beckett is tapping her fingers on the nightstand in a very impatient way.

"Castle, I have to get to work. You can take this with some dignity or I can pour it down your throat like last night."

"Won't. It tastes horrible."

"I'll get you some ice-cream."

"It gives me hallucinations."

"Now you're being ridiculous. It's just antibiotics. It can't give you hallucinations."

"Did so," he grumps. Beckett looks familiarly disbelieving.

"Okay, so what were these hallucinations? Pink elephants? Dancing Gateses in purple tutus? I know. Dancing Espositos in purple tutus. With Ryan as a partner."

Castle barely manages a smile. Normally he'd be shaking with laughter at the thought.

"No. Stop laughing at me. It _did_ give me hallucinations."

"You still have to take it. C'mon, open wide."

"Won't." Castle clamps his lips together and folds his arms. "I'm not having any more hallucinations."

"Okay, what were they? You're normally on the outside edge of insanity, so why is this a problem?"

Castle blushes. Actually blushes. Beckett only just controls a snigger. One shouldn't mock the afflicted – but it's very hard not to sometimes.

"Come on. I have to go. In five seconds I'm going to hold your nose and pour this down your throat again. And I won't give you ice-cream to take the nasty taste away if I have to do that."

Castle squirms uncomfortably.

"One… two… three…" He used to do that to Alexis. When she was three. Beckett may not have maternal instincts but she's got the discipline bit down cold.

"Youwereinmybed."

"What?"

"You were in my bed."

 _Oh, fuck_. He woke up. "I was in your bed?" It's a good enough effort at disbelief to fool him in his fuddled state.

"Yeah. And you were talking."

"I think you were dreaming. Not hallucinating. Now, take the medicine and some ice-cream and I'll drop by at lunchtime to make sure you take the next dose."

He obediently opens his mouth, swallows, and makes a horrible face. Ice-cream duly appears, though not quite fast enough.

"You okay to eat that or do you need fed?" Beckett almost sounds concerned. She looks a little off, but Castle's too concerned with how he feels – dreadful, and he's only been awake for five minutes – to follow that up.

"I'll manage." He looks pathetically at her. "Promise you'll come back later?"

"Yep. I've got your key." She grins evilly. "Got to make sure you take your medicine." She smiles, and pats his hand. "Gotta run, Castle. See you later."

She is only too glad to get out the loft. He _woke up_? She wouldn't have thought a bomb would have woken him. At least he thinks it was a drug-fuelled vision. Phew. Thank God she had run home earlier, collected all necessary items (including the pill, which she only restarted a month ago) and then been reading in the main room till he woke. It would be a bit difficult to convince him it was all a dream if there was an only too solid book on the nightstand. Phew. She doesn't quite flee, but it's close.

By the time she's hit the precinct, she's calmed down. It's fine. _Castle_ doesn't believe it was real: Castle, who believes in leprechauns and unicorns, aliens and Men in Black, spies and shooters and happy endings. And her. Castle believes in everything. Except this.

After her second cup of coffee, she's had another idea. She has to stay at Castle's till Martha or Alexis gets back. And she'd slept really, really well last night… though she doesn't quite understand how she'd woken up with Castle's arm around her when she's perfectly certain she went to sleep at least a foot away and not touching him at all. Still, she'd slept better than in months.

Beckett concocts a plan. She badly needs some good-quality rest after the sniper case, and she has now found some. Even a couple of days would really, really help. So if she simply lets Castle carry on believing that he's hallucinating – she's not lying, she's just not correcting his mistaken impression – then she can sleep safely next to him for the next couple of days, till he's better. Of course, she'll be making sure he's not getting any worse, too. Win-win. And when he is better, he'll never believe it happened and she can continue with Dr Burke, unpicking her messed-up head, till she's ready to tell Castle the truth.

She's entirely forgotten that Castle had said she was talking. She's never talked in her sleep in her life, she thinks wrongly, and she hasn't started now. She ignores the little twinge of common sense or conscience or both that tells her that she wouldn't have to worry – and wouldn't need to worry about where she was sleeping, either – if she just told the truth. She's not ready for this truth.

But she will be. Soon. Just a little more time with Dr Burke. And for now she'll salve her ruffled conscience by looking after Castle. He's cute when he's ill. Thinking of which, she'd better get going. If she has to go and pour medicine and snark down him at lunchtime she needs to get on with her day job. The last thing she needs is Gates thinking she's slacking off. She puts her head down and stops thinking about anything outside her work.

She has to wake Castle to take his medicine at lunchtime, and though she chases it with yet more ice-cream he's asleep again before she's fed him more than a spoonful (under protest, but his hands are shaking appallingly and she doesn't want either of them to be sleeping in a puddle of chocolate ice-cream). She finishes it. No point in wasting chocolate ice-cream, is there? Especially not when it's top quality.

At the end of the day she scarpers before Esposito or Ryan can enquire into her rapid exit. On the way she picks up a carton of ready-made chicken soup (well, she can't make it, so might as well get it from the professionals) which should improve Castle's day and not make him throw up (though she might make sure there's an empty bowl nearby) and some chocolate. For her. She needs chocolate.

Extraordinarily, Castle is not just awake, but has dragged himself as far as the couch and a movie. He's even found sweatpants and a t-shirt, but he hardly looks better than at lunchtime.

"I brought dinner," Beckett notes. "Chicken soup."

"Chicken soup?"

"Thought you'd appreciate it." She smirks. " _After_ you take the medicine." Castle manages a respectable effort at a pout. Beckett sashays off to the kitchen, locates a pan, and starts the soup heating. Some focused exploration also finds some bread to go with it. She has no intention of starving, even if Castle can't or won't or doesn't want to eat.

"I want steak," Castle whines.

"Nope. You're ill. You get chicken soup. And some bread, if you're really lucky."

"I spent the day dreaming of a juicy, rare steak."

"Dream on, Castle. Besides which, you were asleep all morning. Are you telling me you were asleep all afternoon too?"

"No," he sulks. "I woke up, and no-one was here. You left me all on my own. I'm bored, Beckett."

"You're ill, Castle. You're not coming to the precinct when you're ill. Think yourself lucky I'm here now. If we'd had a body drop, I couldn't be."

"Couldn't?"

"Wouldn't. I mean wouldn't."

Castle tries for a sceptical gaze and fails. Beckett's _looking after_ him. It's sweet. Unusual, and terrifying, and rather like being tended by a full-grown tiger, but sweet. He just wishes he felt better so that he could take advantage of it. Even _Die Hards_ one to four haven't really made him feel better. He knew he should have watched _Firefly_.

The chicken soup is good. Undemanding, and it takes away the nasty taste. But eating it leaves Castle exhausted and Beckett won't let him watch another movie. Honestly, if he'd wanted medical boot camp he'd have checked into a hospital. He thinks moodily that he'd probably have ended up in the ER if Beckett hadn't taken care of him, being treated by an unsympathetic, bossy nurse who wouldn't respect his creative streak at all. And worst of all, she'd have supported the Mets. Which is just entirely beyond the pale. She'd have harassed him to take the medicine and called it encouragement, too. But it wouldn't have been encouraging at all.

"Bedtime, Castle."

"I want a shower."

"No. You'll collapse, and I am not putting my back out trying to lift you out of there."

"I feel horrible. Please, Beckett. I really want to wash."

"Stay there." Why? He can't wash here. He is sticky and revolting and he probably needs a shave but he'll cut his own throat if he tries (at least then there would be no more medicine) and he is sure he would feel much, much better if he were clean. And he just bets Beckett won't give him a sponge bath, either. Life is just not fair. And she's left him alone again.

"Wake up, Castle." What? He is awake. Never closed his eyes for an instant. "Stand up."

"Don't wanna."

"Do it." He does. "Walk into your bathroom." He does. Beckett and that tone are not to be denied – oh. _Oh_. She's run him a bath. A hot, steaming, vaguely aromatic – oh, that's his muscle relaxant, wonderful – bath. He's fallen in love all over again. Not with Beckett. With the bath.

"Bath," he says stupidly.

"Yes, Castle, it's a bath. Now go wash, since I've spent time drawing the bath for you." She leaves, before he can suggest she washes him. On balance, that's a good thing. If he makes suggestions she might leave. That would be a bad thing. He shuffles off his clothes, shuffles to the bath, and sinks down. It is wonderful. He may expire from ecstasy. He has an unwelcome thought, and then spots a pair of pyjamas – _clean_ pyjamas – waiting for him.

Eventually the bath is no longer hot, and Beckett has enquired whether he is okay six times. He summons massive effort and extricates himself, dries and puts on his pyjamas without actually collapsing, though it is a close run thing (he's not telling Beckett that, she won't let him bathe again if he does), and shuffles himself into bed.

Beckett pokes her head round the door, spies Castle, still worryingly pallid and exhausted but safely tucked up in bed. She starts to withdraw.

"Staring is creepy, Beckett," he manages.

"Just checking up on you."

"I'd rather you were checking me out."

"In your dreams. I'm making sure you don't die on me"

"Aw, Beckett, that's so sweet. I knew you cared really."

"I care about not being arrested for your murder."

Castle's face falls. Beckett discovers a tiny twinge of publicly acceptable sympathy and curves the rest of herself around the door. She sits down on the uncomfortable chair and mutters displeasedly.

"This chair is really uncomfortable, Castle," she complains. He humphs.

"Why's it by the bed, anyway. I don't leave it there." He sounds a little petulant. Beckett doesn't say anything for a moment. A small flicker of light dawns across Castle's face. "You moved it. Why did you move my chair?" More silence. "You were _watching_ me while I was asleep," he says, with more mischief than any time in the previous three days. Beckett recovers some game in a hurry.

"Yeah. Like I said, making sure you didn't die on me." Castle seems to lose interest, and thought, probably due to the pain creasing his forehead.

"I feel awful, Beckett," he says plaintively. "Stay till I fall asleep?"

"That won't take long," she says briskly. "What about a nightlight instead? Or a soft toy?" He droops even further into his pillows.

"Please?" He looks so pathetically miserable that she stops snarking. Mostly.

"Okay, I'll stay. But I am not patting your hand like some Victorian version of a ministering angel."

"Just stay, _please_?"

"Not moving. Now _go to sleep_." He looks blearily at her. "I'm still here. Better?" He nods.

"Lots better. Thank you, Beckett."

"Off to sleep, then. Good night, Castle." He wants nothing more than to sleep again. Maybe he'll have that lovely hallucination some more, too.

Ten seconds later Castle is out for the count and snoring very gently, much like a refined elephant. Beckett repairs to the main room and the remnants of her book. It's only eight p.m. And she is not going to repeat last night. Not yet, anyway. Later… that's different. She curls up on the couch and loses herself in the story. When she's finished that, she finds the next in the series, looking in on Castle on the way. He's deeply asleep, which is the best thing for both of them. If he's asleep, he can't be wondering where she's sleeping, or what she's doing. Perfect. She goes back to the book.

A while later, she has stopped perusing the book and started perusing the coffee machine, trying to work out how to make it produce coffee. Any sort of coffee. Any sort of hot liquid with caffeine, in fact. It's ridiculously complicated. She glares at it. It is resolutely unimpressed. She glares harder. It has no effect. She even bats her eyelashes. Still no help. She resorts to logic. Finally she thinks she's worked it out, investigates an entire factory's worth of kitchen cupboards before she finds a mug – it would be _logical_ if the mugs were near the other crockery, but she supposes that this is Castle, who is rarely logical for more than thirty seconds – and very tentatively presses a button.

Astonishingly, coffee eventuates. Beckett's satisfied smile would light up the Chrysler Building. It even tastes like coffee. She is unnecessarily delighted with this. Complicated machinery is not her thing. If it's not her gun, she doesn't want to know. She knows her gun inside out, though. Esposito had insisted, and then made her strip and clean it until she could do it blindfold. Damn ex-Special Forces snipers.

Some time later she decides that she's tired. She goes upstairs and showers, luxuriating in the forceful pressure of the water – so much better than the feeble efforts of her building – applies moisturiser, and puts on her nightwear. It is, of course, entirely accidental and coincidental that she picked up the silkiest, sexiest nightwear in her extensive collection. It had been _near_ the top.

She looks at the cool, clean spare room décor, then ignores it and pads softly out the door. Halfway to the stairs she pads back, untucks the bed linen, lies down on the bed and rolls over a couple of times. There. Now it looks slept in. This time she pads all the way downstairs, retrieves her book and peeks round the bedroom door. Castle is still snoring softly – well, whiffling, really – and she doesn't think, in her expert opinion (which is thoroughly limited) that he's likely to surface at all. Even if he does, he'll think he's hallucinating again. That is such a _useful_ delusion.

Meanwhile, she'll get another good night's sleep. She should be worried about that, but she isn't. Restful sleep is far too important to allow minor little matters such as, say, ethics or worries to interfere.

By now she's slipped silently into the bedroom, into the empty side of the bed, and into the pile of soft, squishy pillows. She's asleep nearly as quickly as Castle had been. Perhaps that's why she doesn't know that tonight she hasn't simply reached for his hand, she's then gone on to snuggle up against him. Unlike Castle, Beckett categorically does not snore. Also unlike Castle, she _does_ talk in her sleep.

Perhaps that's what wakes him. Semi-wakes, anyway. He has no desire to wake fully, especially since in this comfortable barely-conscious state his delightfully delicious voluble vision has reappeared. It's even better than last night, because it's cuddled up against him and chattering to his chest.

"If I got better.. I wanna be better." It had said that last night too. "I could tell the truth." It hadn't said that. This is new. And interesting. It's a fascinating dream. "Wanna stand…"

He likes this. He'll put up with the horrible yellow medicine if he can keep these astonishingly realistic visions of Beckett right where he'd love her to be. To wit, in his bed. He takes advantage of the vision, which unlike a real Beckett does not snark, twist his ear, or threaten him with a gun, (a vast improvement, though he'd probably miss the snark) and insinuates an arm around it. It's a _really_ good hallucination, this. He'd thought you needed LSD to get this good. It's wearing the silkiest, sexiest, tiniest nightwear imaginable. _And_ it talks. Right now, it's saying – what?

"Wish I'd ditched Josh earlier." Yeah. Castle does too. Before Josh had ever arrived. His vision wriggles restlessly. "Wasted all that time." They have. And time is still a-wasting. "Shouldn't've lied." More restlessness. If only this were a real Beckett. But it isn't. However, since it isn't, there's nothing to stop him from cuddling it as tightly as if it were. He'd never had a life-size teddy bear.

He falls back asleep contentedly cuddling his dream-Beckett, and a brief waking still later finds said vision still in place. Maybe he'll get a repeat prescription. He can deal with the dreadful taste if he gets to hallucinate about having a Beckett in his bed.

* * *

 _Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed and/or favourited. Much appreciated._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: I ain't got a fever**

Naturally, when he wakes up the dream-Beckett is gone. He considers going back to sleep to find it again, but his plan is interrupted by a very real Beckett brandishing the medicine bottle and a spoon.

"Open wide," she says, with far more evil amusement than is strictly warranted or indeed fair. He'd rather she were open wide. Still, the surprise on her face when he obediently does so is worth the ticket price.

"You must be dead," she says unflatteringly. "You're not complaining."

"Mmmmf," Castle manages, around a mouthful of medicine. "I want to be better."

He really doesn't get why Beckett twitches before her excellent poker face comes into play. It occurs to him that, in fact and in defiance of his expectations, he _does_ feel a lot better. Not _good_ , but he is fairly sure that he is likely to live, which is a distinct improvement on yesterday.

"Breakfast?" he asks plaintively. He is hungry. Chicken soup is not filling.

"Huh?"

"Breakfast. A meal eaten in the morning to break the night's fast."

"I know what breakfast is, Castle."

"May I have some, then?"

Beckett regards Castle suspiciously. He _looks_ much better. At best, tonight is going to be her last chance at acquiring a really good night's sleep. Though she still doesn't understand how she was snuggled into Castle when she woke up. Extricating herself without waking him had required significant effort and flexibility.

"You still have to keep taking the medicine for the rest of the week."

"I know." Castle makes a face. "Otherwise I'll be responsible for a plague of giant mutant superviruses" –

"Bacteria."

"Whatever. Mutant bacteria, then – taking over the world."

Beckett rolls her eyes.

"I have to get to work."

"You won't make me pancakes?" Quite unexpectedly, Beckett blushes. Brightly. Really, positively, blushes.

"I don't think I have anything to say _thank you_ for," she snips. Castle pouts.

"I could arrange it," he leers.

"Right now you couldn't raise an eyebrow," Beckett snarks back. This is not entirely true. He can certainly raise an eyebrow. He raises both, to prove a point. Then he has a sudden flashback to his hallucinatory Beckett in its minimal nightwear, and finds, to his considerable relief, that other areas are able to rise too. Marginally. His eyebrows waggle villainously, and the leer increases by a few watts.

Beckett glances at her watch and squawks. "I need to go. See you at lunchtime. Don't get into trouble. Don't do anything that might make you sicker. And _do not_ come to the precinct. If you do I will bring you home in handcuffs."

Castle opens his mouth. "Promi" –

"Shut up, Castle." He closes it again.

When Beckett's gone on a cloud of haste and irritation, Castle is swiftly bored. He has no inspiration, but he's not quite tired enough to flop back into bed and do nothing. He mooches on the couch for a little while, but can't find a movie that he wants to watch; he makes himself a coffee, not incidentally resetting all the buttons to the correct places and smiling affectionately to himself about Beckett's complete inability to use his coffee machine properly. He has a thought, and spends a few moments writing out some detailed instructions for her. Maybe it'll encourage her to hang around here a little longer. Then he hides them. She might just shoot him for implying she can't make it work.

Eventually, he installs himself comfortably on the couch again, with more coffee, opens his laptop, and desultorily plays Spider Solitaire and similar games. He loses. By the time noon comes round, he starts looking at the clock. By twelve thirty, he's wondering where Beckett is. By twelve forty-five, he's sulking because she hasn't shown up. By twelve fifty, he's starting to speculate about disasters. When she opens the door at twelve fifty-three, he's convinced that she's been shot. Again.

"You're okay!" he squeaks, relief draping each word.

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"I expected you earlier."

"Castle, you know lunch is never an exact time. It's not even one. We were busy – not a new case," she says hurriedly – "Gates wants all known paperwork cleared up. She dislikes me enough already without her having an excuse. I had to get it done. I've only got ten minutes. Can you just take your medicine and I'll bring dinner back with me – something better than soup?"

"No need." Castle smiles very smugly as she opens her mouth on the question. "Unlike you, I have a well-stocked fridge. Can you cook?"

"Yes," Beckett says crossly. "I just don't often have time. Now take the medicine because I gotta run." He does, she does, and the loft returns to boring quietness. Castle drinks the remainder of the soup and eats the last of the bread. Since he feels a lot better, he shaves, without any difficulty whatsoever, and then, since he's on a roll, has a shower. Then he discovers that the shower was one effort too many. He barely manages to dry himself before he falls back into bed.

That medicine is _still_ affecting his brain. He'd swear that the bed and pillows on the other side to his preference carry the faint but very familiar scent of Beckett and Beckett's moisturiser. This is really, really weird. Maybe he should report this side effect to Dr Kovach. Or the AMA.

He crashes into sleep with the apparently Beckett-scented pillow clutched tightly against him.

When Castle wakes, it's around four and he appears to have had an idea in his sleep. Much as he likes his hallucinations, it's really not mentally healthy to be having them all the time. He'll prove to himself that it was all a fake. All he has to do is remember what she said, because there was a name in dream-Beckett's muttering. He'll remember the name, Google it, and it'll turn out to be a checkered-shirted lumberjack in Montana. That'll cure him. He simply has to pin down the name.

This proves rather difficult. For a man with a notoriously good memory, he's having real trouble. He ponders. Lurk? No. Jerk? No. Dirk? That sounds more plausible, but it's not quite right. He ponders some more. His head is beginning to hurt, and he hasn't even lifted it from the pillow. He ceases pondering in favour of a glass of water, which involves the considerable complication of getting out of bed. It's quite unreasonably difficult. Maybe the shower had been a bad plan.

Burke. Doctor Burke. That sounds more likely than anything else he's thought. He'll just check him out, and then he'll be cured. And then he'll spend some quality time working out how to persuade the real Beckett into snuggling on the couch with him and watching a movie. He'd persuade her to a lot more, given half a chance, but he's so tired and still ill and falling asleep halfway through is hardly likely to impress her.

There are a _lot_ of Dr Burkes in the world. But none of them moonlight as Montana lumberjacks. Castle, for whom intense tedium is fuelling his voracious curiosity, decides to research a little more deeply. First he wipes out all the Burkes who are not in New York. Then he limits it to Manhattan. That leaves him with one. So he looks up his professional qualifications.

It's taken him a mere twenty minutes to be staring at the screen and hyperventilating. That was not what he had expected at all. There is a real Dr Burke, practising in Manhattan, and who is a psychiatrist who consults for the NYPD. This is – dynamite. It's blown his brains out.

It wasn't a hallucination. That was the _real_ Beckett, really in his bed.

The real Beckett is – seeing a shrink? Uh?

He makes a slight recovery and patches up the fractured fractals of his brain. If that was real, then… the _rest_ of what she said was – might be – real too. What else did she say?

Another twenty minutes of pondering, interspersed with scrawled notes, passes before he thinks he's got everything. Then he hides it in a desk drawer, falls back into bed because he is ridiculously tired all over again, which is _not fair_ because he should be better by now, and keeps on thinking.

First up, since he still can't believe it, Beckett was really in his bed. He only wishes that he'd been capable of doing something about it. She had, he remembers, only been in his bed once before, after the bomb that had wrecked her apartment. Hmm. They might never have spoken about it, but that didn't stop him thinking. He knows she'd wanted comfort and reassurance because she'd been scared and shocked and not sleeping. Traumatised, really – oh.

 _Oh_. Shrink equals trauma equals… oh. _Oh_. Right now she's cuddling up to him every night because she needs him – because she's scared and shocked and can't sleep all over again. Well now. This could be remarkably interesting. Oh yes. Beckett's seeing a shrink to get better. Based on the balance of her nocturnal mutterings, she's doing it so she can tell him, Castle, the truth. And further, she's doing it in order (he so hopes this is right) to dive in. With him. She thinks she has to be better (from what? The shooting? The aftermath?) to have some mysterious "him", but then she'd said she could tell the truth – and shouldn't have lied, and the only person he's dead sure she's lied to is him. He's known that right from the moment she woke up.

Why she couldn't simply tell him is a different point, but, let's face it, it's not as if either of them have ever really told each other anything outright. That coded discussion on the swings suddenly makes a lot more sense, too.

Well, well, well. This is all very, very hopeful. Now, how best to achieve a satisfactory outcome before his family get back? He thinks that he'd better start by ensuring that Beckett shows up in his bed tonight. Okay so – one – _don't_ tell her he's guessed the truth. Two – make sure she thinks he's still pretty sick – that won't be hard. Three – listen very carefully to anything she might say in her sleep. She's positively loquacious in her sleep. And four – wake up before she sneaks off. He'd really like a good look at that nightwear. Well, a brief look up close and then a slightly longer look at it lying on the floor. There. Perfect plan.

He falls back to sleep – yet again – on a cloud of happiness.

Beckett's afternoon could not be described as either happy or productive. Not in her terms, anyway. Productive would have meant solving a case, and dealing with paperwork is not solving cases. But it does have to be done, and Gates's frigid glare every time she exits the Captain's office is not conducive to slacking. All three of them are working as hard as they can, and as a consequence the pile of outstanding paperwork is reducing more rapidly than in some weeks. Still, they all leave pretty precisely at the end of shift. No point in doing overtime when there isn't a case to pursue.

Beckett gets home to silence, and rapidly assumes that Castle is asleep again. She's halfway through raiding the fridge to find something that she can fix for dinner when she realises with consternation that she'd thought of this as coming home. That's… worrying. Terrifying, in fact. This is _not_ her home and until she sorts her head out with Dr Burke there is absolutely no chance that it will be. She mustn't think like that. Especially, she shouldn't already be thinking how nice it will be to be curled up in the same bed as Castle. So she won't. She drags her errant thoughts back to the extensive contents of the fridge and finds chicken, mushrooms, some herbs and some cream. Perfect. She will make chicken stroganoff, with rice.

So that's what she does. It's simmering gently when she starts to search the cupboards for paprika. She can't find it. She can't find any spices, which strikes her as odd. She also realises that she hasn't heard a peep from Castle since she came in, which is also odd. She deduces that he is asleep, and confirms it by sneaking a peek round the bedroom door.

Oh. Oooh. That's pretty. Mmmmm. Castle is lying on top of the covers wearing a pair of relatively restrained silk boxers and not a lot else. Mmmmm. Even if he's not perfectly healthy right now – and if he's asleep again then he's really not healthy – he is a very handsome sight. Not classically handsome, it's true. But she doesn't like the lanky model type: she likes someone big and broad who can make her feel cosseted and safe. And there it is, laid out in front of her. Mmmmm. But he is asleep. Which means, her naughty mind reminds her, that she's safe to sleep with him again tonight. She doesn't have the heart to wake him. Besides which, he's making that cute whiffling noise again and she intends to rag him about it. If she's teasing him about that she doesn't have to think about what she's doing. Maybe she could record it and play it back when he denies it…. She smirks nastily.

She goes and searches the kitchen for spices again, and finally finds them right under her nose in a rack on the wall. Couldn't Castle keep them in a cupboard like the rest of the world? Humph. She'll go and wake him. It'll make her feel better. And reassure her that he isn't any worse. He'd been awake yesterday, so this doesn't seem like an improvement.

She really tries not to drool over the impressively extensive musculature, and very nearly succeeds. Fortunately, Castle is still sleeping and can't see her face or the slow, detailed gaze she sweeps up and down his body. Those boxers don't hide a lot. And there is a lot which isn't well hidden. Mmmmm. Very nice. _Very_ nice.

Eventually she stops ogling – she'd call it admiring – and shakes Castle gently to try to wake him. It doesn't work. She shakes a little harder, noting that there is very little wobble across his pecs and none at all on his stomach. Still nothing. Beckett's patience, never exactly extensive, gives out. She shakes him hard.

Next thing she knows she's sprawled all over the floor. Ow. What the hell happened there?

"Sorry sorry sorry," Castle is repeating. "Sorry. I didn't mean to push you."

"Huh?" is all Beckett can manage.

"I was dreaming and I thought you were a burglar so I shoved it away except it was you." He's swung his feet out of bed and is reaching down to help her up, catching her hands, still repeating "Sorry, sorry. Are you okay?" It's just a shame that when he pulls her up he misjudges it – and his own state – tugs far too hard and instead of being sprawled all over the floor Beckett ends up sprawled all over Castle.

Castle is a considerable improvement on the floor. Happily, Castle's automatic reaction to her falling on top of him is to wrap his arms around her and hang on tightly. He's very pleased to see her. _Very_ pleased. And she is rapidly becoming aware that she is equally, though rather less obviously, pleased to see him.

This is a bad idea. This is a really, really bad idea. But somehow no matter how much her mind is telling her body that, her body doesn't seem to want to move. Her body, in fact, wants to press in close, nuzzle his neck, and then kiss hell out him. Her brain is in control of her body, however. So she won't be doing that.

She's not doing that. She's not doing much about untangling herself, either, but she is not kissing Castle. Brain 1, Body 0. She starts on the complicated and unwelcome process of untangling herself. Castle is not helping. If he weren't ill, she'd suggest he was actively hindering, and take extreme measures. But he is ill. So instead of embedding her fingernails in his ears, she will carefully extract herself. He's still whimpering _sorry sorry_ , which he seems to think will make up for not letting go of her. (It might. But she's not admitting that.)

"It's okay, Castle. I'm not hurt. A bit surprised, that's all. Where'd you learn that?" Castle smirks.

"At the gym."

"Huh," Beckett says. "Want some dinner?"

"If you're sure you're okay." It sounds sympathetic. Until Beckett catches his twinkling eyes. "If not, I could kiss the sore bits better."

"Not necessary. And if you want some dinner, put a shirt on. I don't want to look at your chest all evening." Of course she doesn't. She wants to snuggle into it, all night. Or it could be pressing down on her. Or she could be pressing down into it. Or… This is not helpful. She manages to pull herself away and exits the room before she can do anything stupid. Like fall back on top of Castle.

Castle lies quietly for a moment to recover his composure. Ill or not ill, he's fairly certain that if he'd hung on he could have exerted enough force that Beckett wouldn't have been going anywhere. He'd been very severely tempted to kiss her – and from the way her eyes had dilated she wouldn't have objected. But he's not quite convinced – the state of his body notwithstanding – that he is in a fit state to carry through, and it doesn't seem sensible to spoil their first time together. On the other hand, he could probably achieve quite a lot if Beckett sneaks into his bed again… Now that has some possibilities, if he's careful.

He tugs on a dark blue shirt which he knows Beckett likes and some sweatpants and wanders out with some trepidation to find out what Beckett's view on dinner, and her ability to cook, might be. He is not expecting cordon bleu, given that Beckett lives on takeaway and caffeine. In fact, he'll be very happy if it's edible.

* * *

 _Thank you all, especially guests and those who don't accept PMs, who can't be thanked otherwise._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Ain't no paramedic**

One mouthful in he is in love again. Not with Beckett, but with the stroganoff.

"You have to give me the recipe, Beckett," Castle enthuses. "This is really good. How'd you make it?"

Ah. That's a slight problem. She doesn't really know. A pinch of this, a splash of that, season till it tastes right.

"Ummm… it's a bit difficult to explain, Castle."

"You won't share. That's not kind." He pouts. "It tastes really good and you won't let me do it."

Beckett just about manages not to blush. The look in Castle's eyes is deeply, deeply wicked. Castle smirks. "What are you thinking, Beckett? I'm talking about dinner." Beckett takes a defiant mouthful of stroganoff and composes herself under his mischievous gaze. Gradually the incipient blush skulks away.

If he's well enough to flirt and play the innuendo game, then he's well enough for her to retaliate. Not with words: she only rarely wins with words, but there are other ways. She smiles as edgily as sharpened steel and lets her eyes widen and her lashes sweep downward. Then she licks a non-existent smear of sauce from her lips, slowly. Satisfied that she has piqued his interest, she eats a morsel more and surrounds herself with a contented, slightly smug silence. It is, naturally, broken by Castle.

"I still want it," he says, very insinuatingly. Beckett chokes on her food.

" _What?_ "

"We-ell…" Castle drawls, and withers instantly under Beckett's ferocious glare. "The recipe, Beckett."

"Why are you so fixated on the recipe?"

"You don't wear sunglasses." Beckett looks at him as if he's run mad. "All the TV cops wear sunglasses. They're fixated on them. It's very odd." He smiles lazily. Her heart sinks. Right into her loins. "I like new tastes and flavours." She knew it. Here they go. She'll be a puddle in seconds. "I like the sensation of the smooth cream sliding over my tongue, licking it off the white flesh that it covers." He smiles more widely, and his eyes are dark. "It's amazing."

This is entirely unfair, Beckett thinks. She is absolutely positive that he is not talking about her _stroganoff_. She will not give him the satisfaction of seeing her blush. She will not. Nor will she simply invite him to prove his point in the bedroom. She absolutely will not do that and she will not blush.

She doesn't blush. But she does wriggle. Just a very tiny wriggle, barely enough to move the ends of her hair. He shouldn't even have noticed, seeing as he's supposed to be _ill_. But it is perfectly obvious that he has. His expression has mutated into a lazier, sleepy, sexy smile that screams _let's stop pretending it's dinner I want to eat and let me start on you_. She shouldn't even consider it. She glares some more, to no good effect – in fact Castle is looking at her as if he knows she doesn't mean it – and wishes that he didn't know that she knows that the glare is balanced perilously on an expression that is far more _yes, let's stop pretending and fall into bed. Right now_.

"Time for your medicine," she says briskly, before her mind can join her body in getting her into trouble. _Trouble_ , in this case, translating to _bed_. Castle makes his usual childishly obstinate face. Her conviction that she has had some form of mental breakdown which has stopped her brain exercising its normal total control over her body is brought rudely home to her a moment later when she hears herself say, "How are the hallucinations?"

Castle looks a little regretful. "I don't think they're gone," he says plaintively. "I don't like them."

"You still have to take the medicine. I'm sure as soon as it's finished they'll stop." He grumbles, not particularly under his breath.

"I know what'll cure them," he says, with an air of Columbus-standard discovery.

"Yes?" She is deeply suspicious of that demeanour. It always means trouble.

"You."

" _Me_?" she squeaks.

"You. If you stay and watch a movie with me, I won't be sleeping so I won't be hallucinating. Please, Beckett? I'll even let you choose the movie. It won't be late. You'll get home by bedtime. Or you could stay." _In my bedroom_ hangs softly in the air.

"Er…" Beckett sounds embarrassed. Is she actually going to admit where she's been sleeping? "I've been staying in your guest room." Oh. No. He supposes the whole truth was a bit much to hope for.

"You _stayed_?" Beckett really does blush this time.

"You're my partner." Oh yes, he totally is. Just wait, Beckett. They'll be partners in a rather more extensive sense, very soon. "Partners look out for each other. Easier to do that if I'm here. I didn't think you'd mind." She's trying adorably hard to pretend that it was just because of being work partners. Shame that Castle knows there's so much more to it, because it's a really excellent act. Both of them are really excellent actors.

"That's really sweet," he says very sincerely, and thinks something much more closely akin to _Yes! You care_. Then he smirks. "You needn't have bothered with the guest room, though. You could have shared" –

"Shut up, Castle. In your dreams."

"Back to reminding me of the hallucinations. You wound me deeply, Beckett. Stabbing me in the heart." She looks moderately disgusted.

"Medicine. Then movie. And if you try any funny business I will shoot you."

"You're no fun," grouses Castle, but he goes and takes his medicine without further complaint, returns and starts to clear the table until Beckett spots him.

"What are you doing?"

"Clearing up. I am house trained." Beckett's eyebrows rise. Both of them. This is a bad sign.

"You obviously don't like your dinner service."

"Huh?"

"For three days you've barely made it out of bed. Your hands are shaking." Oh. So they are. "So clearly you're quite happy to drop all your plates and let them smash on the floor when you collapse. Again." She pauses. "You do realise that if you fall over, I can't get you up?" Aaargh. That was a very stupid thing to say. Especially as she could get him up, so to speak, in half a second flat. She forcibly moves her fingers away from their approach to her shirt buttons.

He smirks. A truly inappropriate comment is falling over itself to exit his mouth. She forestalls it.

"I can't _lift_ you." _Idiot_ is clearly the end of that sentence. Castle bristles.

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

"Well…" He growls. "No. But if I try lifting you I'll" – she stops, winces, and rushes the words out in one stream – "I'll rip the surgical scar." She turns away, so he can't see her face, leaving the words and all the history that they carry weighing heavy around her.

"Okay," Castle says, deflated and serious. "I'll behave." He'd never thought of that. Feeling slightly guilty, he puts the load back down on the table and betakes himself off to the couch. Shortly Beckett joins him, sadly at a safe and separate distance.

"So where are your movies, Castle?" He gestures widely at a cabinet. Beckett sits cross-legged in front of it, her head cocked to examine the contents.

" _How_ many Disney animations, Castle?"

"Alexis," he replies, as if that explains it sufficiently.

"Alexis is almost eighteen. The Princess and The Frog was released on DVD last year. _Who_ watches them?"

"Mmmmph."

"Didn't catch that, Castle." He suddenly realises something, before he is forced to admit his guilt.

"How do you know when it was released?" There's no answer. "You watch Disney movies, don't you? Detective Kate Beckett, big bad Homicide cop, watches Disney movies." Her shoulders and back radiate embarrassment. "How did I never notice that?"

"Shuttup," she mutters.

"C'mon, let's watch Disney." He sounds so hopeful she can't resist. A minute later she wishes that she had. "We can sing along to all the songs. Can you sing, Beckett? Let's have The Princess and The Frog. New Orleans accents, great music, and it's just like us. Playboy prince with a heart of gold and a hard-working woman on a mission to make the world better." He becomes aware that Beckett is not responding to his frivolity. "Beckett?"

"S'pose so," she answers, just as if she had never thought of that, and her heart hadn't shrunk a little every time. "But I'm not green or slimy." She turns round, her face perfectly unreadable. "And if you try to kiss me I'll shoot you."

"Oh- _kay_ ," Castle grumps, pretending exasperation. "I won't try to kiss you." _No. I'll succeed. If not now, later. Because I know that you are going to sneak into my bed, and I know that it's because you need me._ "Let's watch the movie."

So that's what they do. Beckett gradually relaxes, but no matter how much Castle pleads and bats his big blue eyes she refuses point blank to sing. She does hum. Castle, naturally, produces with no embarrassment whatsoever a full-throated baritone at a reasonable volume. Beckett thinks, a touch unhappily, that he is really getting better very quickly, and while she wants him better, like St Augustine praying for chastity and continence, not just yet. Tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. Or the day after that.

Her unhappiness is alleviated as Castle starts to fade. If Beckett hadn't herself been somewhat more tired than usual (Damn paperwork. Damn Gates.) she might have noticed that his fading was just a tiny touch more rapid than perhaps was entirely likely.

Shortly, Castle's eyes are shut and his breathing evens out. It seems clear he's asleep. Beckett curls her toes more neatly under herself, and reaches for the book she'd left on the coffee table this morning as the credits roll. Castle's starting to whiffle again, which confirms her belief that he is asleep.

She reads a few pages. Then she wriggles into a more comfortable position on the couch. She reads a few more pages. The cute (what?) whiffling has continued unchanged and unabated for some time. Definitely asleep.

Beckett rearranges herself so that she is thoroughly comfortable. This involves turning herself partway round, wriggling her bare toes under a convenient scatter cushion to keep them warm, and leaning back against the equally convenient backrest of Castle's wide, warm chest. Then she settles happily to her (well, Castle's, but she's reading it so it's hers for now) book and is shortly entirely lost to anything else.

Castle is not, in fact, asleep. He had decided to pretend to sleep and see what happened, although Beckett had really taken far too long to reorganise herself into – or on to – his all-too-receptive self. He had been very close to falling asleep for real when she _finally_ snuggled in. That had woken him up. Keeping up the act had been extraordinarily difficult.

It's still difficult. All he would have to do would be to stretch out in his simulated sleep and when he relaxed again place his arm limply around her. Limp is not precisely how he either would want to be, or currently is, but anything more would blow his cover. Still, count his blessings. Beckett is more snuggly than he would ever have thought. She is snuggled against _him_. And it's all been entirely at her volition. While he's actually dead certain that if – as he had once done – he simply hauled her against him and kissed her _hard_ she'd be right there in it, he's not wholly sure that she'd still be in it the following day. After all, she hadn't been last time.

He wants far more than simply the fiery physical connection. If that one strange comfort-seeking night had finished differently; if that one – two? – hard hot kiss hadn't _had_ to stop; if she hadn't dropped off the face of the earth after she got shot and he hadn't been first too scared and then too angry to find her – if they had _ever_ talked about any or all of those… maybe they'd already have found it.

And from Beckett's night time speech and actions, she wants that too. She'd changed him from the womanising playboy frog prince into the concerned supportive lover – would-be lover, and then would-be far more – but he hasn't yet managed to move her from the over-driven woman on a mission, working far too many hours, to someone who can rest safe with him. Who will accept that sometimes she _needs_ to rest safe with him. He'll hold her up, on the rare days she might otherwise fall.

Yet… and yet. She's slipping secretively into his bed because she feels safe there, with him. So maybe she's moved some way in his direction already. Perhaps she's almost there.

He becomes aware that he is genuinely exhausted again, and that falling asleep on the couch will inevitably result in considerable discomfort. He essays a preparatory movement, which results in an extremely rapid repositioning of the previously-tucked-in Beckett to a safe separation.

"I need to go to bed," he yawns. "Till tomorrow?"

"Yes, I'll be here tomorrow. Good night, Castle."

Castle wanders – more of a stagger, though he'd deny it vehemently if called upon to comment – to his bedroom, and succeeds in preparing for bed with only a few wobbles. He pulls on pyjama pants, but mysteriously neglects the shirt, left ignored in the bathroom. If Beckett is going to snuggle, he wants her snuggled against his skin, not a layer of cotton away. He slides into bed with some considerable – but not admitted – relief, makes certain that the covers – well, _cover_ him, up to his neck, and hopes that Beckett will come and say good night.

She does, peeping round the door frame like a shy deer, not coming too close. "Night, Castle."

"Till tomorrow, Beckett." She disappears, and very shortly so does the world.

Beckett had not prolonged the exchange of good nights. Mainly, that's because her brain is still fighting a pitched battle – or possibly a rear-guard action – to retain some vestige of control. Even if most of her brain has deserted or joined the ranks of her body's wants. _Wants_ being to fall straight into Castle's clearly willing arms and body. Her last remaining iota of brain points out that Castle is (one) asleep, in which state he is likely good to cuddle up to but not much use for anything else, and (two) ill, and she might catch it. The idea that she can't or shouldn't do this for any other reason has packed its bags and emigrated some time ago, right about the point she'd fallen – or been pulled – on top of him.

She shouldn't have thought about that. It had felt good. Better than good. It had felt amazingly _right_ to have his solid body against her and his hard weight pressed neatly at the junction of her thighs. She wriggles, and squeezes her legs together, and seats herself very firmly on the couch.

Half an hour later, she has read approximately half a page of book and approximately every two minutes wrenched her mind off some frankly pornographic imaginings, all triggered by and centred around Castle's salacious description of eating. She can see herself spread out for him, see him poised to pounce, almost feel his hands gripping and the force in his bulk holding her – the same, but yet not the same, as it was on a late dark night in a dank alley six months ago.

Sometimes she wishes that he would simply take the choice and decision away from her: that he would just do as he had done that late dark night, haul her in and kiss her and override her fears and fragilities. It would bring her over her barriers. But he's never given her so much as a hint of a hint that he would, and so they just keep on dancing to a tune of innuendo and subtext and ignoring both the glissando of perfect harmony and the clashing chords of occasional dissonance: together, and yet so very far apart.

Thinking about this is not helping.

The more she thinks about this the more she wants to run. She simply hasn't decided whether to run home or into the bedroom. She fails utterly to read her book, and an interested observer, such as Castle would have been had he been awake, might have noticed the fine line of colour washed along her cheekbones, the slight dilation of her pupils, and the ravaging of her bottom lip. Had he been awake to appreciate any of that, her wishes might well have instantly come true.

She forces herself to read, but at the earliest reasonable opportunity peeks in on Castle, finds him sleeping, withdraws to prepare for bed, hesitates, dons the minimalist nightwear, and does exactly what she's known below the surface that she would do tonight, since the moment she woke up this morning wrapped into Castle's arms and against his chest – slips silently into the space on her side of the bed. She doesn't have the slightest conception of the betrayal inherent in the thought she's just had.

She wriggles carefully down, breathes in the reassuring, familiar, and arousing aroma of Castle, and is asleep in seconds, turning automatically as her eyes shut to be close into him, curving unconsciously to lie over his chest and shoulder where she fits perfectly, home where she belongs. She doesn't realise that, either. She only senses, deep below her sleeping mind, that this is _right_. In his sleep, his arm comes around her to bring her in nearer, to keep her safe and warm and sheltered in the haven of his body.

Castle is, as he had expected, woken by Beckett's nocturnal mutterings. He repositions them both to become comfortable, and not incidentally to be able to hear her clearly. It's just as illuminating as the previous comments.

"I want to be better. I need to be better. 'S not fair on him." She stops, moving closer, her arm coming up to curl around and grasp his shoulder. He thinks that it more closely resembles a small, scared animal seeking shelter from the storm than his bad-ass Beckett. Not a Beckett, really, at all. Maybe a Kate. He pets her, soothing gently, and she settles against him again, quietened.

"Shouldn't have lied. He'll never forgive me." He will. She only has to talk to him. "It hurt too much." She tries to curl up and away from him, around the scars. He unfurls her very carefully, and brings her back. It's extraordinary, how much he's learning, though none of it comes from the following, unintelligible mutter. Finally the mutter clarifies into speech again. "Couldn't say it back."

What the actual _fuck_? Right. That is _it_. That is the last straw. She is not leaving his loft – or his arms or his bed – till this is sorted out. And very, _very_ conveniently, which he is quite certain Beckett has not fully (or indeed at all) appreciated, tomorrow is Saturday and she'd mentioned last week that she wasn't on shift this weekend. "Wish you'd just kiss me." He wishes she had just let him know that. He hadn't wanted shot. Hadn't wanted to force something on her which she didn't want. More unintelligible muttering, dying away. Some moments later, when he's almost asleep again, just as he's thought that tonight's revelations are over, there's a final faint murmur into his pectoral. "Love you too."

He's stunned. Brain dead. But not so brain-dead that he can't make certain sure that she is held firmly close. Nor so brain-dead that he can't whisper _love you Kate_ in return.

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. All logged in reviewers, who accept PMs, are answered. To all others, many thanks. I appreciate all of your comments._

 ** _This chapter I regard as strong T. The next chapter contains a small and limited dose of M-content. Skipping over the M-content will not damage your enjoyment of the story if that is what you prefer to do._**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Your kiss is the drug**

Beckett wakes to find herself very tightly wrapped in. This is not helpful. Very pleasant, but not at all helpful. She has to work out a way of extracting herself without waking Castle so she can get to – oh. It's Saturday, so she doesn't have to get to work. She peers blearily at the clock and discovers it's just before eight. Ugh. She hasn't slept this late in months. She'd better get out of here. Castle, in complete defiance of his notoriously playboy lifestyle, had appeared to rise at a relatively reasonable hour, when she'd last stayed here. She attempts to unwrap herself.

"Uh-uh, Beckett." _Oh fuck. "_ You're not going anywhere." What's that saying? Never get into an arm-wrestle with an alligator? That doesn't sound right, but if it's not a saying it should be. Maybe it's something about being ass-deep in alligators? Her desperate attempt to distract herself from the disaster into which she has just dropped fails.

"You're a very solid entity, for someone who's ostensibly a hallucination." A warm hand runs suggestively over her back. "Very realistic. Of course," he says conversationally, "maybe that's because you _are_ real. And really here." She doesn't even have enough wiggle room to turn over so she doesn't have to face him. She knows this because she has just tried. And failed.

"Let go," she says hopefully, recognising that there isn't a cat in hell's chance of her being able to break Castle's grip, even if he is sick. He's not sounding very sick right now. More smug, and satisfied, as if he's solved a mystery. She supposes he has. She doesn't have to like it.

"Nope. You're staying right where you are." He pauses, significantly. "With one very minor change." She doesn't have a chance to process that before he rolls over and she's pinned to the bed under him. One hand seems to have got tangled in the hair at her nape and the other appears to be cupping her face. At the moment, the majority of Castle's weight is on his elbows. The balance is nestled very comfortably between her legs and – er – making its presence felt.

This is a very dangerous position to be in. Mostly because of her almost-overwhelming urge to pull Castle down on to her mouth. On the other hand, she's been caught out, and embarrassment about that is stopping her.

Castle does not consider this to be a dangerous position at all. He'd use… hopeful. Or arousing. Right now, he doesn't feel ill at all.

"Now that we're all nice and comfy, why don't you explain what you're doing in my bed?" he purrs happily.

Depressingly, Beckett clamps her lips together and says nothing.

"Not that I don't like it, but it's not exactly what I expected to wake up to."

Beckett is firmly not looking at him. Castle leans a little closer to her mouth.

"On the other hand" – said hand strokes her cheek – "I could certainly get used to it. And if you don't start talking you'll be getting used to it too, because neither of us is going anyplace until you do." He smiles lazily down. "I can think of quite a few ways to pass the time, Beckett."

"I'm sure you can," Beckett snips automatically, and then realises she's spoken and clamps her lips shut again. Castle leans another degree or two closer, slowly and deliberately, giving her plenty of time to recognise the move and the look in his eyes. He's always been a risk taker – but he's always calculated the risks he's taking. Based on last night's words, and her expression right now, the risk is minimal – not to say non-existent.

"You're still not explaining, Beckett," he breathes across her lips, "so I guess we'll just have to pass the time another way." And his mouth drops the last fraction on to hers.

She opens to him instantly, just as she had done on that one dark night. It's ambrosial. He explores and tastes and takes and plunders; becoming ever more sure, searching and demanding; then hard, demanding and possessive. She's open and receptive, and her hands have come up to hold him into her, biting into his shoulders and the hard muscle of his back.

He rolls them again, bringing her atop him so that he can sweep over the length of her back, the smooth curve of her rear; can pull her and hold her tight against him right where she fits and then spread her over him; rock up into the hot cradle of her hips. She makes a surprised, wholly sexy little noise which he swallows up in his kiss, and stretches to roll against him. His hand roams and strokes, sliding over the silky fabric and tracing the crease between rear and thigh; dropping between her legs to find wet heat and welcome below the fabric and this is all moving too fast but he doesn't know how to stop and she's writhing on his hand and his fingers inside her, soaked and tight and desperate for him, her mouth hard on his, nails piercing his skin as she struggles to hold him in closer, nearer.

"Are you safe?"

"Yes," she breathes.

She moans as his fingers leave her, but it's only for long enough to strip the panties and push forward and roll them again and plunge into her and she arches up into him and both of them are making noises but neither of them are talking. It doesn't take long for his questing fingers to find exactly the right spot in her slick skin to bring her gripping around him and as soon as she lets go he can too.

He has just enough strength to roll over one final time so that he doesn't collapse on top of her, links his hands around her, and gives up any pretence of being well. Sex with Beckett is fantastic. Being ill is not fantastic, and he has quite comprehensively overreached his strength. The only thing he can do is make sure as best he can that she doesn't run off.

Beckett is not moving anywhere until she's sure she can focus. Or maybe that her muscles can function. Neither is entirely certain right now. Castle's presence, however, is very much certain. He is certainly lying underneath her, he certainly makes a very comfortable pillow, and he is certainly hanging on to her as if he'd fall to his death otherwise. Oh, and he has certainly just provided her with the most spectacular sex she's ever had.

Now what?

Well, she doesn't seem to be going anywhere. She could try, in a few minutes or so. Or she could just accept that she's staying right here. Wrestling herself out of Castle's grip will take considerable effort which she doesn't have the strength to make. Not to mention that she doesn't actually want to. On the other hand she doesn't want to explain, either. Ugh. She doesn't have to decide now. She can just stay right here and decide later. It's nice and warm and comfy. She drifts back into sated, satisfied somnolence, and shortly into sleep.

When she wakes up again, she's still wrapped up like a parcel, which might be very nice, if she didn't really, really want a shower. How did it get to be ten a.m.? She can't stay in bed all day.

"Yes, we can." Aw, _hell_. Had she really said that out loud? Castle sounds sleepy – waking up and cute sleepy, not sexy sleepy. "We're staying here till you explain why you were in my bed." He yawns widely. "You've worn me out, Beckett."

"You just woke up."

"I'm ill."

Beckett snorts. "That's ill?"

"I haven't had my medicine, either. And it's all your fault."

This time she splutters wordlessly.

"We're not getting out of bed till you explain. So it's your fault I can't take my medicine. If I get sicker you'll be responsible." He clamps his arms more tightly round her. "And you'll be responsible for the giant mutant super bacteria and the global failure of antibiotics."

"You could just let go of me and go take the medicine yourself."

"I could, but then you'd run away. You'd lock yourself in the bathroom and hide." The tone is teasing. The sentiment is entirely serious.

Castle is blackmailing her. This is not fair. Beckett looks at once guilty and sulky, which appears to have no effect at all on Castle. An unexpected downside to him being a parent, presumably.

"Do you pout too? I've always wanted to see you pout."

She doesn't pout. How disappointing. He's sure that her pout would be astonishingly sexy and kissable. If he had the energy to kiss her. At least – he has the energy to kiss her, but not for anything else, and if he kisses her _anything else_ will be firmly on his mind. He's quite frustrated enough with the current situation without adding more.

"Why were you in my bed, Beckett?" Silence. He thinks of something, and smirks. "Did you know you talk in your sleep?"

" _What_? I do not."

"Do so."

"Do not."

"I can prove it."

"You can't prove it, because it isn't true."

"Okay, so how do I know that you're seeing a Dr Burke if you don't" – he abruptly has to tighten his arms around her still further as she tries to make a break for it – "Beckett?"

"Let go." Now she simply looks miserable.

"No." He should, but he isn't going to. They are going to have this out, here and now, because he will never get a better chance. "I'm not letting you go. Whatever it is, you're going to explain why you sneaked into my bed and let me think you were a hallucination." He tries to lighten the mood again. "If it had been to take advantage of my ruggedly handsome body you wouldn't have pretended to be a dream." More unhappy silence. That didn't work. "It's not as if you haven't sneaked into here before."

That is a low blow. And what else might she have said if she talks in her sleep? She would never have thought that she talked in her sleep. If she'd had the slightest suspicion that her subconscious would betray her like that she'd never _ever_ have slipped into this bed. Never ever ever. It's not fair. All she wanted was the comfort of his presence and a good night's sleep. It hadn't even been her cuddling up to him. She'd kept to her own side of the bed and not touched him at all. It must have been he who had cuddled up to her.

"You were snuggling up to me." His statement electrifies her.

"I was not! I kept strictly to my side of the bed" – oh _shit_. Nothing like surprising an admission out of her. That's her trick.

" _Your_ side?" His eyes dance. "I wasn't aware we had sides. Seeing as it's my bed and all, and you've spent most of the time draped over me. But since I'm a very… generous" – why does she think that doesn't mean the Merriam-Webster definition, and more importantly why is her body screaming at her brain that he was indeed very… generous and she should let him display some more of that generosity? – "man, I'm happy to let you share it."

She becomes aware that his firm grasp has relaxed and he's gently stroking her back, as if he were petting a cat. It has much the same effect, too. She's somehow soothed, and not only that but she is beginning to curve into the smooth rub of his hand. He doesn't sound angry, either. More… enquiring.

"C'mon, Beckett," he says softly. "You're here. You had to have a reason, so just for once let's talk about it? Please?" He keeps petting softly. She tries to burrow into his chest, any other place to hide being inaccessible while he's still cuddling her.

"I-was-worried-about-you," she mumbles into his chest. There's a surprised jerk underneath her.

"That worried?"

"You're never ill," she says crossly. "You nearly collapsed in the bullpen. I'm allowed to worry."

"Okay, that's the first night explained. But it doesn't explain the next two, because you were quite happy to go off to work and leave me all on my own, despite me still being sick, and come back to check up on me at lunchtime." If she'd been looking at him, she'd have seen him twinkling mischievously at her. But she isn't, so she doesn't. She mumbles into his chest some more.

"Didn't catch that, Beckett."

"I slept properly the first night." There's another surprised movement, followed by an inquiring silence. The petting hasn't stopped at all. Beckett displaces her thoughts to how nice it might be to be a cat, with nothing to do but eat and sleep and curl up on Castle's very comfortable body and be petted. Unfortunately that reminds her just how nice it is to be curled up into Castle's very comfortable body being petted.

"You slept properly? Haven't you been sleeping well?" Castle sounds far too concerned for her liking.

"I've been fine." There's a disgusted snort underneath her. "I am."

"You'd say you were fine as the zombies chewed your arm off during the apocalypse."

"Since that's never going to happen I don't think that's a fair comparison."

"Okay, you're saying you're fine when you're sneaking into my bed to sleep properly and you were spooking on the last case. You're not fine. I know it and you know it and _it doesn't matter_." Beckett makes another determined effort to burrow into his ribcage. Castle pulls her up. "It really doesn't matter. Just tell me about it."

"I want a shower."

"I want you to talk to me. Looks like either both of us get what we want or neither of us do." She can hear the smug _I've won_ tone in his voice, but he's still petting gently.

There is a short hiatus while nothing at all happens. Beckett has given up trying to escape Castle's embrace; Castle has given up trying to extract answers. Besides which, he is perfectly happy with the position they are in. He's never had such a delightful teddy bear and he is quite content to stay cuddling it for a very long time. The rest of his life, say. Though he supposes that he'll have to take occasional breaks for food and relief.

"I'm-seeing-a-shrink."

"I know."

" _What_?" Beckett squawks. "How do you know that?"

"You said Dr Burke in your sleep. I was trying to prove it was a hallucination so I researched him."

"You looked up _my shrink_?" He'd never realised that Beckett could screech.

"I didn't think it was real. Anyway, I was bored." He thinks that's a perfectly good reason. It is clear that Beckett doesn't agree, since she's doing her best to attack his ear. Fortunately he has a good grip on her hands. "If I hadn't thought you were a hallucination – which was all your fault – I wouldn't have had to prove that you weren't."

Beckett subsides, marginally. Then she startles. "Castle," she says grimly, "is there anything _else_ you're going to spring on me that I apparently said in my sleep?"

She has decided that she might as well know the worst. She is extremely surprised that Castle doesn't immediately answer. His first comment is also not what she expects.

"Before I answer, I want you to promise that you won't shoot me."

"My gun is out of reach."

"Or try to kill me with your bare hands?"

"Okay." That one is more reluctant. She is getting a very bad feeling about this, and it's not because she thinks that Castle is likely to gild the lily.

"Or try to mutilate me in any way at all?"

"O-kay…"

"Or try to run away again." That last doesn't sound like a question. Well, it's beginning to sound like she's cornered anyway, so what the hell, she might as well agree.

"Okay."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Cross your heart and hope to die promise?"

"O- _kay_. Cross my heart and hope to die."

She is now thoroughly exasperated, despite being the one in the wrong here. Not that Castle's entirely in the right, though. He's male. His place is in the wrong, and just because she is too doesn't change that.

"You said," Castle edges out, very unusually uncertainly, "that…"

"Just get on with it."

"…you wanted to be better" – that's not so bad – "and you couldn't have me till you were better" – oh God – "and you could tell the truth and shouldn't have lied" – oh shit – "but actually I knew you'd lied already" – _what?_ – "so that wasn't exactly a surprise and you said you should have dumped Josh earlier and…" – why has he stopped there? Isn't all of that quite bad enough? She is perfectly certain that the zombie apocalypse would have been better than this. Can't the earth just open up and swallow her now? Please? He looks very, very nervous – "you said you wished I'd just kiss you" – oh _hell_ no, surely not? Appalled realisation hasn't quite fully formed when he carries on – "and…er…um… you said… er… you loved me," he hurries out, and grabs her hands before she forgets she promised – cross her heart and hope to die – not to kill him.

She doesn't try to kill him. She doesn't try to run away. She doesn't even try to mutilate him. Now he's really worried. She's making another attempt to bury herself _under_ his ribs, and while he can stand an awful lot of Beckett draped over him, he'd rather she wasn't attempting open heart surgery without a scalpel or anaesthetic. He wasn't aware that one's chin could be used to attempt surgery. He really wasn't.

"Ow," he says plaintively, in the hope that she will stop digging a hole in his chest. It fails miserably. He resorts to the application of his returning strength and forces a hand under her chin. When that only results in the small bones in his hand – which he will need for writing, damn it – being ground together, he stops that futile pursuit and lifts her up by her shoulders.

"C'mon, Beckett. Talk to me."

* * *

 _Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Just one more chapter, tomorrow._

 _To the guest who wondered why only one chapter a day, because it's easier for me. Sorry, that simple._


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Something better baby**

She shakes her head and tries to hide. She's blushing furiously and won't meet his eyes and it's adorable. Especially when she curls into a ball. He uncurls her and, much as he would put weights on each end of a sheet of paper to keep it flat, pins her shoulders with his hands and then leans a heavy thigh over her legs. "Now I've got you. Look at me." She squishes her eyes shut. "Beckett, that's childish."

"Sez you," she mutters. "Nine-year old."

"I hope you've worked out I'm not nine, Beckett. I'm sure I can prove it again if you haven't."

"Stop smirking."

"Your eyes are shut. You can't possibly tell whether I'm smirking or not."

"Can so. It's in your voice." But she opens her eyes, to check.

"That's better. Did I ever tell you that you have gorgeous eyes?"

"Yeah. Ten minutes after you met me when you were trying every second-rate pickup line you could think of to get me into bed."

Castle looks offended. "They weren't second-rate. That one was absolutely true." He gazes soulfully into her eyes. "Still is."

"At least this time you're not trying to talk me into bed."

"Didn't need to, did I?" He smirks some more. "You must be quite content to be here."

"Huh?"

"All you need to do to get up is talk to me. You said you weren't sleeping properly except if you were here. Is that why you're seeing the shrink?"

"Sort of," arrives in a disgruntled mumble.

"Last time you weren't sleeping properly it was because you nearly got blown up. This time it's because you got shot." He sounds a little irritated. "Why can't you just let me help when I'm awake, rather than sneaking round like a ghost and pretending you don't need me and it never happened?"

"Because I _lied_ ," Beckett yells. He winces, as his eardrums resonate. "I lied to you and now you say you always knew it and how can you not even _mind_?"

"I _do_ mind. Of course I _mind_. I hate that you lied to me and I hate that you ran away and I hate that you won't just dive in when it's _obvious_ it'll be great." He pauses, and his voice drops to utterly serious and believable – and utterly terrified. "But I love you, and you love me, and we can work it out." He stops again. "If you'll talk to me." And again a pause. "If we talked to each other?"

There's no answer. When he dares to look at Beckett, terrified of what he'll see in her face, that's because her eyes are squeezed shut again but fat tears are rolling down her cheeks.

"Beckett… Kate… don't cry, babe."

"If you call me babe I will shoot you," she says soggily. The kick-ass sentiment is ruined by the quantity of snuffles attending it.

"Honey?"

"No."

"Sweetie-pie?"

"Ugh. No."

"Sweetheart?"

She simply growls. But – she's stopped crying, which was the main aim. He'll find a pet name for her some other time. Soon. Very soon. He gathers her into his arms rather than continuing to hold her in place and lets her cuddle damply into his chest.

"You said it" – he knows what _it_ is – "but it all hurt too much and I was _dead_ and I couldn't cope with anything. Then I got back and everyone was just the same and expected me to be just the same and I couldn't be, but I had to be. And then it didn't seem like you had meant it anyway. But I kept going to the shrink. I wanted to be _better_ ," she half-wails. "But it's taking so long and it's so slow and I'm _not_ better and it's not fair." Her voice falls. "I never thought it would be so hard to be ready."

Castle is pretty certain that what she means is that it's not fair on him. For someone trained in logical thought and deduction from the evidence and facts, Beckett's explanatory style is currently chaotically confused. Fortunately he's used to dealing with emotional females and Beckett, even chaotically confused and unusually emotional, is a good deal more logical than his mother or Alexis or either of his ex-wives had ever been when upset. The best solution to upset female, he has found, is usually hugs, so that's what he applies.

Hugs even work on Beckett. Given her innate ability to confound him, he hadn't been entirely certain of that. However, they do. She's still cuddled against him, but she's not crying again and she has relaxed somewhat. And she's talked. Mostly.

"You still want a shower, Beckett?"

"Yeah," she drags out.

"Off you go, then." She does. Castle would, in other circumstances, have joined her marginally faster than light speed (he's sure it's possible to go faster than light no matter what Einstein proved), but on balance he thinks that coffee is a better answer to the present conundrum than more sex. Also he is not entirely sure that he is physically capable of more sex, especially standing up, given that this damn bug is still present. He hurriedly swallows down the morning dose of medicine. The Universe is clearly not on his, Castle's, side this week. Although… if it hadn't been for the bug and the horrible medicine he wouldn't now be in a very much better place as regards Beckett. So maybe the Universe is on his side. About time, too.

As he's making the coffee, after a swift shower of his own, it occurs to him that Beckett had said _it didn't seem like you meant it_. Well, he'd not exactly been impressed by her three-month disappearance. That's an understatement. He'd been absolutely furious with her and he's still not sure why one half-hearted conversation that said nothing kept him following her. Of course, he _now_ knows that it was actually saying everything. Amazing what an unprompted declaration of love can show.

Anyway, he'd followed his gut, and his gut had said follow Beckett. But he didn't have to moon over her like a lovestruck fool when she'd ignored his declaration and outright lied, and he hadn't. Hadn't tried to find her, hadn't tried to go back to the precinct once thrown out. Hadn't stopped investigating, either, but by that time it had been as much about the intellectual challenge as anything else.

Who's he kidding? It had always been about her. It still is about her. But she clearly hasn't searched his study, because he's still alive.

And here she is, showered and dressed, a little damp around the edges and a little damp around the eyes.

"Coffee?"

"Please," she sniffs, with a watery smile. This is very un-Beckett-like. He doesn't like crying Beckett. It's against Nature. He hands over her coffee and she perks up merely from taking a deep sniff at the aroma. Automatically he also hands over a Kleenex, and gets an eye roll for his trouble even though it's instantly followed by her blowing her nose.

Castle gently pushes Beckett in the direction of the couch and smiles hopefully until she sits down. Then he plops down next to her, doesn't even try to pretend that he's doing anything else when he slides his arm round her shoulders, and simply hugs her. There's a heart-stopping pause where he thinks that she won't respond, and then she gives a tiny sigh and relaxes into him. In another moment a companionable silence, no doubt created by the coffee, has descended and Beckett appears to mark the moment by snuggling in further. Well, Castle can stand a lot of snuggle. He's a very tactile person, and he's spent nearly three years hoping to get tactile with Beckett. And now he has. His fingers draw delicate little circles on her upper arm.

"Better?"

Beckett considers that. She does feel better. Mostly. She hasn't had enough coffee to know whether she's all better or not. She never feels normal-Beckett before the end of the second mug.

"Tell you after I've had more coffee," she says.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot that you're an alien till the third cup. That shape change is really effective. It even keeps working when you're asleep."

Beckett suppresses a wince and glares without any real force, on general principles. "I'm as human as you are, Castle. There are no such things as aliens."

"But Beckett, there are aliens. All living with us. You've seen Men In Black, haven't you?" Her mouth opens on a smart retort. "And if there are no aliens, how are you going to explain Gates?" Her mouth giggles. _Giggles_. She is losing it. What happened to the smart retort? "She's obviously an alien."

"How do you know?"

"She doesn't like me," he pouts. "Everybody likes me. Even you like me. Therefore she can't be human."

"I don't think she's an alien. Just… focused. There must be more people who don't like you."

"Nope."

Beckett raises a cynically disbelieving eyebrow.

"No. Everyone likes me. The fans like me, the on-line forums like me, the press likes me, my ex-wives like me, my daughter likes me – even my mother likes me."

"She has to. She's your mother. And you pay all her bills."

"Doesn't explain everyone else, Beckett. I don't pay their bills. Well, except Alexis."

More coffee happens, and under its soothing, humanising influence, Beckett relapses into her normal silence. Normal if she weren't nicely tucked into him, at least. Clearly this is a new normal. He tugs her a little closer, puts his own coffee down, takes her cup – he'd checked that she was finished first: he doesn't want to die today – turns her head round, leans down, and kisses her. It's _almost_ platonic. At least for the first couple of seconds. After that it becomes a lot less platonic and a lot more passionate.

A little while later, once Castle has lifted off her lips, Beckett finds herself sitting on his lap, somewhat disarranged in hair and clothing, and trying to work out what is going on now. The day has been profoundly disconcerting so far. She'd rather like the world to stop for a while so that she can get off it, sort herself out, and try to process everything.

Or, of course, she could stay cuddled up in Castle's eminently comfortable lap, sort herself out, and try to process everything. That would have the huge advantage that she wouldn't have to move, and that Castle would be there. She can't bear to move, because if she does, her next stop will be the subway station, and she'll have screwed it up again.

"I'm not fixed," she mutters into his chest.

"Doesn't matter. You love me." He sounds very smug about that. She wishes she could be smug about him apparently loving her. Instead she's terrified that it's all a mistake and he'll realise he doesn't really love her any moment now. "You're thinking," he points out. "Stop thinking. Thinking is dangerous. Just stay here and stop worrying. I've got you."

"I'm supposed to be looking after you. You're ill."

"I can be ill and still hug you. In fact," he grins mischievously, "hugging you will make me better. So you need to stay right here or I'll get ill again. More ill. You wouldn't want to be responsible for that, would you?"

He remembers something. Ah. Maybe this had better be brought out into the open too. Maybe she won't kill him when he's ill. She did promise not to kill him…

"Beckett?"

"Uh?"

"You know you promised not to kill me if I told you everything?"

"Mmm?"

"I forgot something."

"You forgot something?" She's instantly tense again.

"I… well… er… I didn't exactly stop when Espo and Ryan did and Gates threw me out."

"Stop what?"

"Er… investigating?"

" _What_?"

Her eyes are wide open now, and her face is certainly not buried in his chest.

"I… I've got a board. A murder board. To try to find who shot you." She's white and still, but she hasn't run. Yet. "I got a call just after you came back. Some guy. A friend of Montgomery's. He said… he said…"

"He said what?" There's no emotion in her voice. But she hasn't run, hasn't moved.

"He said that if you kept digging they'd kill you. He has files… if you don't dig, the information in the files will protect you. Montgomery was protecting you with them."

"I've already been shot. Didn't work, did it?"

"They'll try again. And again. I… I can't watch you die again, Beckett."

"But you'd expect me to watch you die because you investigated? Tit-for-tat?"

There's a wholly shocked silence. Castle had honestly – and despite his daughter's bitter words at the time – not believed that he'd be in the line of fire. Beckett has gone back to hiding in his ribs. Somehow her words have hit him in a way no-one else could have managed. Maybe it's because she's _been_ dead, and he had to watch it happen.

"No…" he says slowly. "No. I wouldn't. Not ever. I wouldn't wish that on anyone else ever." He holds her close.

"Then…" she stops, and changes what she was going to say. "Do you have these files too?"

"No."

"Do you know who he was?"

"No."

"Did you try to trace the phone?"

"Yes. It didn't work."

"So we have nothing more than we did yesterday. Nothing more than when you asked me to step back. To give it time. Have you anything more than you did then?"

"No."

Her voice has been wholly calm throughout. It's entirely incongruent with the spreading damp patch on his t-shirt.

"So we got nothing. Nothing but ghosts."

"Yeah."

There's a long space of silence, in which neither of them move and the damp patch on Castle's chest ceases to grow.

"I don't want to see you die, Castle. I don't have the right to tell you or ask you to stop. That's up to you. But I don't want to see you get hurt."

There's another gaping space of quiet.

"I don't want to see you get hurt either, Beckett. Let's make a deal. I won't work on it without you, if you don't work on it without me. If there's a rabbit hole, we go down it together. Okay?"

"Deal." She looks up, damp-eyed but smiling brilliantly. "Deal."

He swoops down and kisses her, softly at first, then possessively, and finally hard and demanding. Beckett, who to the best of Castle's knowledge has never knowingly conceded anything in her entire life, actually allows him to stoop and conquer. She really shouldn't have bothered tidying her clothing. He has every intention of disarranging it further.

His – and her – hands explore happily and widely, for quite some time, both of them content with easy making-out and occasional forays around second base. He's just beginning to consider that they could progress this much more comfortably elsewhere when Beckett tugs herself away. Castle pouts at her, and grumbles.

"That's no fun, Beckett."

She smiles truly evilly.

"Time for your medicine, Castle. It's lunchtime."

He stares slack-jawed at her.

"You stopped making out so that I have to take my medicine?" he squeaks, outraged. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," she smirks. "But if you take your medicine like a good boy I'll give you something nice to eat afterwards." His eyes darken and lust paints itself across his face. "Ice-cream."

"Beckett!"

"If you think you're kissing me after taking that stuff, without either brushing your teeth or eating ice-cream – or both – you're wrong."

"Beckett," he whines.

"I didn't mention anything about what you might eat after the ice-cream," she breathes, and gives a sultry smile, "now did I?" His own smile matches hers.

Late that night, she curls into sleep on his side of the big bed, wrapped into him, and whispers _love you_ , returned with _love you too_. She's unaccountably tired, but it's pretty much better the next morning, when Castle proves that he is _definitely_ recovered. It doesn't stop them enjoying themselves the next night, either. Or the one after that, too.

A couple of days later, when Castle practically carries her out of the bullpen as she's ready to collapse and quite unreasonably manhandles her to the doctor, she finds out just why he'd complained about the yellow antibiotics. She feels so awful she can't even hit him for forcing the dreadful stuff down her throat. It's not improved by his wicked smirk.

"C'mon now, Beckett. Open wide. It's only medicine."

 _ **Fin.**_

* * *

 _Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, or marked as a favourite. All logged-in, answer-accepting reviews are answered, for all my fics: to those who are guest or don't accept PMs, thank you._

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